Our Team

Bates Creek Consulting was founded in 2003 to provide advice and services to firms that needed CFO analysis, advice and support.

Principal — John Zott

Dr. Zott has been a Chief Financial Officer for more than a dozen years and has worked in the consumer field for more than 25 years. He has experience in consumer manufacturing, consumer products, consumer staples and discretionary businesses including e-commerce, catalog, grocery, wholesale, and specialty retail businesses. Dr. Zott has also been involved in mergers & acquisitions and has raised money through bank financings, public offerings and private placements of both debt and equity.

This wide range of experience has made him an expert in retail/distribution companies and he is a frequent speaker and writer on related issues. Dr. Zott was one of the top accounting students in Michigan in 1981, where he passed the CPA exam and worked for Peat, Marwick & Mitchell, auditing J.C. Penney and a series of automobile parts suppliers. After KPMG, he worked his way from auditor through accounting manager, controller and eventually to CFO for West Marine (WMAR) where he was part of the team that took this regional, low profit, low return business into a period of growth increasing sales 6x, increasing profits 20x and becoming the industry dominant competitor.   In 2008, Dr. Zott began consulting with Mi Pueblo Foods, a 12 store grocery chain.  Eventually becoming the CFO the company doubled in size over the next five years reaching 22 stores. 

As a consultant, Dr. Zott worked with some of the leading equity funds in the San Francisco area, identifying and quantifying which firms

Dr. Zott received his doctorate in finance at Golden Gate University in 2008 where he was awarded the “doctoral student of the year” honors. He currently teaches finance in the Master of Science in Finance program at Golden Gate.

Team

The Bates Creek team consists of strong Controller/CFO level resources that deliver accurate results on a timely basis. We’ve worked together on multiple firms over the course of decades and are geographically diverse with resources in the DMV and in California.   With today’s communication options, we are never more than a phone call away.